DropBox

A repository for files, it will automatically push any saved files to all the other members with the shared DropBox. Good for saving large files and sharing with each other, less useful for versioning without an account. Free service.

Facebook

You can setup a group and hold a chat on the network you’re always on. But, we doubt an organisation would handle all their business discussion here. Also, would you want to mix work and online socialising? Free service.

Wiki

The technology that runs Wikipedia, gives the ability to create shared pages and thoughts and revisions. You can share, collaborate, update and see revisions. Free services available.

File sharing

Text versioning

Versioning?

Some services come with versioning on documents, which means you can see the updates and text changes on files. This allows users to work collaboratively and see what changes the group have made, and discuss them. Also, it stops the need to keep naming files like, “copy 1”, “copy 2”, “Final Version”, “final version 2.3” as it’s just one continues file.

Free?

Lots of companies advertise their products as “Free”, however that comes at a cost not associated with money. They effectively own your data, and probably have free reign to sell it on, use it to advertise with or if they shut down, your data goes to the highest bidder.

Other services may offer you a limited time access or file number limit before you need to pay.

Are your students favouring Facebook groups for course discussion over using Moodle forums?

You wouldn’t be the only University with that problem. Naturally water follows the easiest path, and presently for having online discussions it’s simpler to jump on Facebook for a casual chat. It totally beats some clunky Forum software.

But, is that even a problem? Is this practice just replacing them chatting about their project down the SU over a pint?

To be honest, in a lot of the cases there’s no problem for a casual chat. But as there’s pressure to prepare students to be more work ready, I can’t think of a workplace I’ve been in where sitting on Facebook to work would be thought a good idea. Also, by the staff being removed from the equation we’re missing the chance to pick up on problems.

So in a future blog post, I’m going to list some alternative “professional” software which your University could recommend to them.

Ah yes, not only has the Moodle Gradebook got 3 places to change the GradeBook’s settings, it also has 3 types of table minimise, maximise and “kinda show some things”.

So during editing a Gradebook I found the Module Total was wrong, and I couldn’t update it correctly. However, I found out that the table view at the top has 3 types of view. And one of them was hiding the Correct Module total column.

* When you’re testing the weightings it’s really difficult to see the workings out. Change one thing at a time and refresh lots to check it’s happened
* When you update a score in the Grader Report, sometimes it “locks” that grade in that field, or the result field, so any future updates to that group WON’T re-calculate. Click on the Settings Cog, and tick Override to make it re-calculate that fields (you’ll know it by the yellow background)

* Is it better to do loads of grouping in the Grading view? Nope, it is just more hassle. Leave it 1 flat level as much as possible, then the maths is simpler and it’s much easier to interpret and debug

NestedFlat

* “Aggregate only non-empty grades” is a pain, do not tick it unless you really know what it is doing. Use it for grouping up 1 assignment across lots of groups